"Fascinating," Harry thought as he threw himself onto his bed, though his comment was not about Amelia, no matter how amazing she had been.
He certainly didn't expect her to fold to his attention that easily, not with her concerns about her reputation and her sense of propriety, but clearly, he had underestimated the impact of the stress on her. Once he had caught her sneaking into his shower with an invisibility cloak, the rest had been easy.
All he needed was to make her believe that her identity was still secret, and the combined effect of her fears and desires turned her into putty in his hand. And, as an added benefit, her arousal weakened her mental defenses enough for him to get a lot of secrets. Some, like her subconscious determination to stop things if they reached the level of penetration, were unfortunate.
The others, like a secret report from a highly-placed spy only Amelia could contact, revealing the fact that Voldie had just left Britain in an effort to visit Grinderward and make him pay for the mistakes of his supposed subordinates, was very fortunate.
That alone gave him a lot of advantages, especially since he couldn't just waltz across Europe through apparition without alarming half of the governments.
Add in the challenge to break into the most well-defended prison in the world, especially if Harry could find a way to alert European governments about that. Amelia clearly didn't have such plans, afraid of a diplomatic disaster, but for Harry, every second mattered.
If Harry could manage to alert them to enhance the defenses, especially if he could manage to frame it as a potential bid of the alliance after Voldemort did a 'favor' to Grinderward by getting rid of Dumbledore — if the memories Harry was able to glean from Dumbledore before his death, a fact that would galvanize Grinderward into a duel to the death.
Harry doubted that an old man that spent half a century in prison could take down Voldemort — especially with the existence of that pesky prophecy — but he would be happy to injure him in a way that would take a year or so to recover.
He needed the time to grow.
"If only it was that easy," Harry found himself murmuring. The idea was nice, but he doubted that the other magical governments neglected to put their own spies into Britain. Even if their spies weren't highly placed, they would still hear about one of Grinderward's Acolytes killing a bunch of Death Eaters.
Which made his alternative explanation hard to believe. "But not impossible," Harry suddenly added.
It was a long shot, but considering the little effort it required, it was worth a try.
He just needed a way to contact the other locations. He smirked, remembering a certain Slytherin beauty he had been neglecting during all that mess.
"It's hard to believe that it has been a bit more than a month since I last visited her room," Harry murmured in fascination. Still, it was a good excuse to visit her. Maybe Daphne would have some working knowledge about the international magical world, a topic that he knew nothing about.
Unfortunately, meeting with her was hardly a trivial activity. He couldn't just send a letter and meet with her, and visiting her house directly was even more of a problem with all the wards that were doubtlessly raised to war settings.
He doubted Amelia was the only one that was afraid of Death Eater attacks.
Daphne's memories had shown that her family was distant from the general movement — though it was clearly less about any charitable feeling toward muggleborns, and more about having enough intelligence to realize just how horrible of an idea was to serve Voldemort directly with his habit of casual torture, not to mention his horrible decision-making.
Harry could easily imagine some death eaters visiting to teach them a lesson if they left their wards down, and even if that hadn't been a particular concern, there was still the 'mysterious' Acolyte going around killing people.
It would be smart of them to protect themselves.
"Kreacher," Harry called.
"Yes, mudblood master," Kreacher appeared, and Harry smirked, still amused by the way he referred to him.
"Do you think you can somehow bring a message to the Greengrass manor safely?" he asked. Kreacher nodded immediately. "And it wouldn't have any significant risk of death or injury for you?" he followed.
That made Kreacher pause, and for a moment, Harry had flashbacks of Dobby, shivering. Not that he disliked Dobby either — on the contrary, he valued him much higher than most of his useless peers — but that didn't make handling his emotional outbursts any easier.
Luckily, Kreacher didn't explode like that. "No, mudblood master," Kreacher answered, though Harry still peeked his mind to confirm he was telling the truth. It would be just like Kreacher to dismiss any risk toward himself.
Luckily, his thoughts showed that he considered anything other than a mild injury unlikely, and while Harry would have preferred him to avoid that as well, his thoughts showed it was a sacrifice he was making willingly, and Harry didn't want to insult him by denying him that choice.
"Wait a moment," Harry said as he wrote a quick letter, targeting Daphne in a way that wouldn't be too suspicious even if was discovered. It was a long, meandering letter, one that Harry did his best to look like it came from Tracey, but with two exceptions.
One, three different places, he made jokes about the Chamber of Secrets and how it would have been amazing to use it as a bedroom … and toward the end of the second page, he mentioned how Tracey had stumbled upon them having fun when they were having fun.
He trusted Daphne to be smart enough to understand what he meant…
"Go and make sure to bring that to Daphne Greengrass, and only after making sure she's alone and away from any device of magical observation," he explained, and Kreacher nodded. "And, if you can take it safely, wait for a response as well," he added.
"Yes, mudblood master," Kreacher said and disappeared, leaving Harry alone.
"Some additional research wouldn't be amiss," he decided as he wrote a quick letter to Penelope, asking her to go to the ministry archive and start digging about the Acolytes of Grindelwald with a focus on their European roots.
Just because he enjoyed fucking his new secretary didn't mean he wouldn't have any actual work for her.
Soon, he reached a letter … and for a moment, he thought it would be from Daphne, angry that she was reckless enough to send it through owl … but then, he noticed it was from the Ministry.
It was Amelia, inviting him for an official visit to the Ministry. Harry chuckled as he read the letter, which looked like it was written by a secretary — but one advantage of peeking into her mind, Harry recognized her handwriting.
It seemed that, after her latest mishap, she wasn't ready to meet with him in the safety of her own home. Harry smirked, already thinking of some fun ways to challenge that interesting assumption, but he needed to see what exactly she had in mind for that trip. Just a meeting, or a political display.
He wrote a standard answer accepting the invitation, happy to use the opportunity to visit the Ministry while Voldemort was away. And, as an added benefit, he could also talk with Amelia about possible cooperation with German Ministry and hopefully arrange some kind of response against Voldemort's intrusion.
He hoped that, by combining official diplomatic channels with the possible underground contacts he would receive from Daphne, he could keep Voldemort away longer than a month … which would be enough for him to cut his domestic support.
As he planned that, a letter appeared on his desk, Kreacher's style recognizable. Harry chuckled as he flipped the letter, no code. Just a little line, asking for him to meet with her at the Leaky Cauldron tomorrow at midnight.
How mysterious, he decided as he penciled in his second appointment of the day, curious whether he could squeeze another interesting meeting in between.
Before going to bed, he wrote one last note, this time for Tonks, telling her that he needed an escort for the ministry tomorrow.
Just because he was going to an important meeting didn't mean that he couldn't have fun on the way.